It’s
a proven fact that most people change their eating habits and lifestyle
choices only after a serious health scare such as a heart attack or a
diabetes diagnosis. Still, in many cases that may not be enough. Old
habits tend to die hard, but often there are also not many alternatives
to what they’ve been doing in terms of eating right and taking care of
themselves.
Making Better Diet and Lifestyle Choices
Continues to Be an Uphill Battle
A recent
study
found that most consumers after being confronted with a major health
crisis were still influenced in their choices by factors other than
what’s good for their health. For example, people can find it difficult
to change their long established eating habits, says Dr. Yu Ma, an
economics professor at
Alberta School of Business and
author of the study. Another highly influential factor is price, he
says. If they get a good deal on a particular item, they will go for it,
and if it’s too expensive, they will stay away, no matter how much they
would benefit healthwise.
Another issue is what he calls the “health halo effect.” Most people
divide foods simply into two categories: healthy and unhealthy, he says.
If something is considered healthful, e.g. a salad or a breakfast
cereal, as opposed to a cheeseburger or a sugar-laden donut, people tend
to overindulge in the “healthy” stuff without much further thought. We
have seen that phenomenon when, for example, fat-free cookies came on
the market and many believed they could consume those in almost
unlimited quantities because of the absence of fat. Of course,
eliminating the fat did not make those cookies less caloric, and the
results became apparent soon thereafter.
Another
study,
this one on heart attack and stroke patients, showed that nearly 15
percent did not alter their eating and lifestyle habits after the
incident, including poor diet choices, lack of exercise and smoking.
Less than half of all participants in the study reported having made at
least one change, and less than a third said they made several
improvements. Only 4 percent claimed they did everything that was
recommended to them to prevent further deterioration of their health.
Much of the unwillingness or inability to make healthier diet and
lifestyle choices can be blamed on the widespread confusion among the
public due to the ceaseless onslaught of sometimes contradictory
messages in the media about health matters. In addition, many of the
warnings issued by experts are hard to heed by consumers who are
oftentimes ignorant, if not intentionally kept in the dark, about the
nutritional quality of their food supply. For instance, recommendations
to avoid high fat, salt and sugar content may be well-meaning, but they
are by and large useless when ingredients lists are hard to decipher or
when restaurants aren’t required to follow any dietary guidelines or to
post nutritional information on their menus.
“I think people are interested in making changes and they are heeding
the warnings,” said Dr. Sara Bleich, an associate professor of health
policy at the
John Hopkins School of Public Health to
NBCNews.
“But when it comes to food, it’s much more complicated. Cereal, for
example, has a tremendous amount of added sugar. And not everyone
understands that breakfast foods like muffins and pastry, things that
people don’t consider to be a dessert or an indulgence, pack a lot of
sugar.” Similar concerns apply to salt in countless processed foods,
many of which don’t even taste salty, and certain types of fats, some of
which are obscured by arbitrary serving descriptions on food labels.
Undoubtedly, more and more people want to be better informed about
nutritional health and be empowered to make the right choices. With
growing consumer demand for further regulation and protection, that may
be feasible over time. But for now, it’s an ongoing uphill battle, and
most of us have to fend for ourselves as well as we can.
- See more at:
http://www.timigustafson.com/2013/even-health-conscious-consumers-find-it-hard-to-maintain-a-healthy-diet/#sthash.Wwt9xIzu.dpuf
